


Ghosts

by misslucy21



Category: NCIS
Genre: 09x08-09 Engaged, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslucy21/pseuds/misslucy21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are the ghosts. They swirl around him, getting thicker by the day, the month, the year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of spoilers for "Engaged" (both parts)
> 
> Another NaNo work. Original here: http://misslucy21.livejournal.com/21474.html

There are the ghosts. They swirl around him, getting thicker by the day, the month, the year. Maybe it's part of getting older. Maybe he's getting old, losing ground in keeping his head 6 feet above the earth rather than below it. He should ask Ducky if the ghosts follow him too. He's the one who speaks to the dead, after all.

Shannon in his bed, wishing for one more lazy day with her. One more day in the sunshine. It's morning again, yet another morning come where he wakes up and she's gone. Gone 20 years now. He doesn't even know how to comprehend that number. Doesn't understand how he's lived without her twice as long as he lived with her. Never sure he can go another day, but somehow he does. She tells him he needs to let her go to get what he needs, but he doesn't even know what that is. Not sure he could let her go in any case.

Kelly in those little girls. Those brave little girls, daring to learn. Kelly had loved school. Loved learning and he'd loved teaching her the things a dad should teach his daughter. He saw her sometimes, giggling as she balanced on a curb or a low wall like little kids do. He saw her in his team, his substitute kids, who were all so broken and battered in ways they couldn't ever acknowledge, and yet, they worried about *him*, tried to take care of *his* broken places. Every day, even when he snapped and snarled at him for doing it. He was awed by their strength some days, and knew they were part of how he managed in a world without his little girl.

Mattson, in Lieutenant Flores. A new ghost- he hadn't thought about her in years. But watching these competent, brave women who went into battle zones to make things better brought him right back to training and a young woman who was determined to beat them all. Who'd died much too soon before she'd been able to prove herself the way she wanted. Flores, the other FETs, they were what she would have wanted to be, he was sure.

Kate, even, sometimes, when he was in the bullpen alone, late at night. She would sit on Ziva's desk and just watch him. Watch over him, maybe. He knew she'd worried about him too, had taken her last duty as his protection detail so, so seriously. Perhaps couldn't let it go, even now years later.

They follow him, these women- Kelly would be a woman now, almost 30, he realizes. They watch his steps, dart around him as he goes through his days. Kept him from being lonely (he hadn't lied to Ziva when he said he wasn't lonely. Sad, yes. Some days too sad. But not lonely). They're less fragmentary than they used to be- more real. Some day, they may become even more real, and then, then, he might be ready to lay himself down and join them. But, until then, he'll just watch them from the corner of his eyes, in his dreams, and keep on.


End file.
